


"The Making of Heroes"

by farad



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 3K Round-up Challenge, Gen, International Fanworks Day 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6021568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For International Fanworks Day, 2016, in answer to the prompt:<br/>What does your favorite character—or your favorite pairing—get fannish over?</p>
<p>Thanks to Jojo for the awesome beta, all mistakes - and too much history - my own.  This is also tagged for the 3K Round UP Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	"The Making of Heroes"

“ _Nurture your minds with great thoughts, to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”_

Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

“Alexander Hamilton, of course,” Ezra said with a broad smile. “The creator of this great nation – and a man of no little knowledge of economics and the ways of global finance. If I could have an hour with him – well, I certainly would not be here.” He sat back in his chair, comfortable as ever in his purple jacket with the green and gold vest. He was drinking brandy tonight, a sign that he had been doing well at the tables the past few nights.

 

“Who?” JD said, and Josiah shook his head, trying to hide his grin.

 

“I thought you went to one of them fancy schools back east,” Buck said, making no effort to hide his own grin. “He was one of the first presidents – hell, JD, everybody knows that!”

 

“Except that he was not a president,” Ezra said shortly, rolling his eyes.

 

“Sure he was!” Buck argued, even as JD mimicked, “Everybody knows that!” and laughed loudly.

 

“He was killed in a duel against Aaron Burr before he had a chance to become president,” Ezra shot back. “Surely you've heard of that.”

 

Buck frowned, waving a hand at JD who was still mimicking him. “Wasn't he president before that?”

 

“When, exactly, would he have fit in?” Ezra asked. “There was Washington, then Adams, then Jefferson – and Hamilton was killed by Burr during Jefferson's presidency.”

 

“Well, don't that beat all!” Buck said. He turned, looking at Chris who was shaking his head. “Did you know that?”

 

Chris nodded, setting his whiskey glass on the table. “I did. Read about it a long time ago, back when I was in school, I think.”

 

“Maybe that was the day you were hiding out in the hay, Buck,” Nathan chimed in, grinning around the cigar in his mouth.

 

“Maybe so,” Buck said good naturedly. If there was anything one could say about Buck, Josiah thought, it was that he took his licks without anger.

 

“How about you, Nathan?” JD said when the laughter calmed down a little. “If you could spend an hour with anyone, who would it be?”

 

Nathan rolled the cigar around a little as he thought about it, the smoke drifting lazily through the late afternoon heat. It was that time of the summer when it was almost too hot to work, though sitting around in the saloon wasn't a damnsight better. But here there was beer, and even though it was warm as pond water, a good bit of it helped you forget you were so miserably hot.

 

“Hard to come up with just one,” he said, taking the cigar from his mouth this time. “Frederick Douglass, of course, but William Wells Brown, too – he was one hell of a man, getting out of slavery.”

 

“You did, too,” Chris said, his voice low, and Josiah smiled again. Chris remembered the important things – and he was good about making sure they all recalled the important things.

 

“Well, yeah,” Nathan said, “but if it weren't for men like him, I would have been too scared to try it. And he had the courage to write it all out, so that everyone could read it.”

 

“I didn't think that they let those stories get around much down there, not before the war,” Chris said, frowning.

 

Nathan shrugged. “We heard things. The story made its rounds, though not the book itself. I didn't read that til I was in Boston. Read a lot of books there, just about everything I could get my hands on. Reckon that's why this question is so hard – lot of people I'd like to meet. Heck, even some of the fictional characters would be interesting – Tommo from that book by the guy who wrote “Moby Dick” - can you imagine being lost in the islands with cannibals?”

 

“Cannibals?” JD said, leaning in as close as he could. In the process, he almost turned over Buck's beer.

 

“Hey, now,” Buck said, pushing JD back. “I remember that book – Tommo and his friend – what was his name?”

 

“Toby,” Nathan said.

 

“Yeah, Toby – Tommo and Toby, trekking around those islands, with all those pretty ladies in their grass skirts . . .” Buck's gaze drifted away, his face taking on a lax expression they all knew so well.

 

“Is that who you want to spend an hour with, Buck?” JD said, annoyed. “A woman in a grass skirt?”

 

Buck grinned and turned to look at JD. “That could do it. Though I'd need more than an hour . . .”

 

“Yeah, 'cause you can't hold a conversation for that long, with anybody,” JD shot back. “Probably shouldn't ask you who you'd want to talk to for an hour – it'd be cruel and unusual punishment for them!”

 

Josiah couldn't stop his amusement, especially when Buck reached over and ruffled JD's hair, saying something about how anybody who talked to JD for an hour would end up with their ears on fire.

 

This, he thought, was why he stayed. He liked to tell himself that it was because of the church – and that was a part of it. But not even the church could hold him the way these men did, these men and their outlandish ideas and questions, these men and their unfailing loyalty to each other – even when they didn't agree, which was pretty much always.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” JD said, knocking Buck's hand away. Josiah turned as he felt someone behind him, to find Vin easing into his usual seat between Josiah and Chris. Vin was dusty, with dark streaks on his forehead and cheeks where sweat had washed away the caked the dirt.

 

Chris looked at him, arching one eyebrow, and Vin said softly, so as not to interrupt the main conversation, “Didn't see a thing. Reckon the pack of 'em have gone to ground – too damned hot to be out in the daylight anyway. I may try to ride out later, but most of the folk I talked to said they hadn't heard 'em in a few nights.”

 

Chris nodded and Josiah picked up his beer, thankful that the coyotes that had been plaguing the local folk were quiet, at least for a time.

 

“What about you, Josiah?” JD asked.

 

Josiah had been expecting this, but he still didn't have an answer. To delay, he looked at Vin and explained. “JD read in one of his magazines that you can learn a lot about your friends by asking them some general questions about their interests. One of those questions is 'if you could spend an hour with anyone from the past, who would it be?'”

 

Vin nodded but frowned, and Josiah suspected that, like Chris, this wasn't a type of question that he was overfond of answering. Josiah took a sip of his beer and looked at JD. “Hard question. Narrowing it down to one is damned near impossible. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, Moses – the great Roman and Greek thinkers, the great Arabic thinkers, and the saints and - “

 

“Come on, Josiah, you get one pick,” Buck pushed. “Just like the rest of us. Who's it gonna be?”

 

Josiah sighed, then, to stall, he took another sip of his beer. As he swallowed, he said the first name that came to mind. “Don Quixote.”

 

There was silence at the table for a few seconds, until Ezra started to chuckle. “There are a few windmills here, Josiah,” he said, lifting his brandy snifter and waving it in Josiah's direction. “Though JD, here, might make an excellent Sancho.”

 

“Who?” JD said, looking from Josiah to Ezra and back.

 

“Don Quixote was a Spanish knight, who went around trying to help people,” Chris explained, his tone brusque. Josiah noticed that as Chris spoke, he glanced at Vin, as if the explanation were as much for Vin as for JD. Though it was pretty obvious, from the frowns on their faces, that Nathan and Buck also benefited from the explanation. “Sancho is his squire, though in reality, Sancho understands more about what's really going on in the world than Don Quixote does.”

 

JD frowned, looking from Chris to Josiah. “Why would you want to spend an hour talking to him?” he asked.

 

Josiah shrugged. “He was a man of great integrity,” he said. “He took on challenges that seemed impossible because it was the right thing to do – tilting at windmills. Reminds me a lot of what we do here.”

 

JD and Buck turned and looked at each other, as if Josiah were making no sense. But he knew he was making sense because Ezra looked down, grinning, and Chris shook his head but caught Vin's eye as Vin also grinned.

 

Nathan simply nodded, and Josiah knew that if he ever had the chance to talk to Don Quixote, Nathan would be with him, sharing tales with Sancho about the problems of putting up with idealistic idiots.

 

JD shook his head, knowing he was missing something but not sure what Buck, ever JD's defender, glared across the table, mostly at Chris, though his words were for Josiah. “Are you saying that we ain't got good sense about what we're doing here?”

 

Josiah choked a little as he tried not to laugh outright, leaving time for Ezra to jump in with an answer. “I think that, sir, is self evident. We get paid a mere pittance to put our lives on the line, to try to keep this town safe from all manner and variety of outlaw, bandit, thief, and opportunist. Of course our ideals are too high – we think that we can continue to do this, and that the people here will always appreciate it. Yet we know already that they often deem our efforts too extreme or too costly. They often have little appreciation for what we do for them. So we must soldier on – literally – doing what we think is right regardless of what they think. Just as Don Quixote.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Buck waved a hand in his direction. Josiah knew that Buck and JD both had stopped listening to Ezra's rant soon after it started – it was a familiar one and like a bad stage actor, Ezra repeated lines that were well worn and in a rhythmic pattern that meant that no one really listened to them anymore.

 

Which got Josiah off the hook as it were, for which he was grateful. He'd have to buy Ezra a glass of that fine brandy he was drinking. Sometime. When he had the money. For now, he nodded his head to Ezra in thanks, relieved when JD turned his attention to Chris.

 

“So what about you, Chris? If you could spend an hour with anyone, who would it be?”

 

Josiah glanced quickly at Chris, knowing – as did everyone else here, from the way men were looking at each other – what Chris' true answer would be. The man was still grieving their loss, after all.

 

But as both Buck and Ezra opened their mouths to head this off, to save JD from being embarrassed, Chris said, “Thomas Jefferson. And he was a president.”

 

“Of course you would prefer him,” Ezra said with a sigh. “Nemesis.”

 

Josiah grinned, amused, and thinking how perfect it was.

 

“What's wrong with Jefferson?” JD asked, looking from Chris to Ezra and back.

 

Ezra shook his head but it was Chris who explained, in his concise way. “Jefferson believed exactly opposite of Hamilton. That was what created the first political parties.”

 

“So Jefferson didn't believe in gambling and cheating people to make money?” JD asked. The timing was perfect; Ezra was in the process of swallowing his brandy and he almost choked on it as he tried to protest the interpretation.

 

Chris actually grinned, that sly, happy grin that made everyone else at the table laugh. “One could say that, yes,” he said, still grinning as he sat back and lifted his shot of whiskey toward Ezra, who was coughing. “He didn't believe in a national bank to house the government's money. He feared that it would lead to corruption in government. He believed that a man was only truly free when he was able to provide for his family from his own land.”

 

Ezra rolled his eyes. “He also believed that buying the Louisiana Territory was within his presidential powers. Fifteen million just like that.”

 

“Not just like that,” Chris countered after he'd taken his drink and swallowed. “He didn't do it lightly, and he worried over it the rest of his life.”

 

“Yes, well, at least he had a life to worry over,” Ezra shot back. “He wasn't killed illegally by a Jefferson supporter.”

 

Chris laughed and so did Josiah, amused at the idea. Seeing the confused faces of the others, Josiah explained, “Burr ran for president on the same ticket with Jefferson and from his party. But back then, whoever won got the presidency and whoever came in second got the vice presidency – parties didn't matter. Burr and Jefferson tied, and neither would back down to be vice president. Jefferson finally won, but only when Hamilton, strangely, got his own supporters to vote for Jefferson, thinking it better to deal with the devil you know. Burr was the man Hamilton later dueled with – and lost.”

 

“I still contend that Burr was working on behalf of the Republicans,” Ezra sniffed. “Bastard.”

 

JD sighed, shaking his head. “Vin?” he said. “Are you into ancient history, too?”

 

At that, Ezra and Chris both arched their eyebrows, and Nathan and Josiah smiled. It was Buck who said, “Less than a hundred years ago, JD. Not that ancient. Ain't like the Roman and Greek stuff that Ezra likes to read about.”

 

“And that you like to see the pictures of,” JD shot back. “Those women weren't hardly dressed!”

 

“And that,” Buck said with a lazy smile, “is why history is a good thing to study.”

 

JD rolled his eyes and turned to Vin. “You got a president, too – or a founder of the country?” he added quickly when Ezra looked as if he might speak.

 

Josiah had his hand on his beer but he stayed his motion to drink, trying to think of a way to save Vin some embarrassment. He knew, and he suspected that many of the others also knew, that Vin couldn't read. Any knowledge he had of history came from stories he'd heard.

 

Vin drew a deep breath and tilted his head, thinking. After a time, when the Chris looked as if he might actually intercede, Vin said, “Don't reckon this is someone you'd expect, but it's someone I'd like to spend some time talking to, if I ever had the chance. I reckon y'all all know about what happened at the Alamo – lot of men were massacred when the Mexican army finally broke through?”

 

“That wasn't that long ago,” Buck said. “You had kin there?”

 

Vin shook his head. “Not that I know of, but to be honest, I don't know a lot about the Tanner family, outside of my ma and her ma and my grandpa. No, there was one man who was there before the attack. He lived 'cause he was sent to try to get reinforcements. His name was Juan Sequin. Big name around Texas during the Republic and after. Think he's in Mexico now, and I keep thinking, every time I'm there, that I'd like to buy him a drink and hear his stories.”

 

JD frowned, and Josiah waited, knowing that JD couldn't keep it quiet for long. Within a breath, the young man said, “He's still alive? I don't know if that counts.”

 

Vin shrugged. “You asked who I'd like to spend an hour talking to. That's the man.”

 

JD seemed to frown even more, his forehead wrinkling in a way that made him look far older than he was.

 

Which led Josiah to ask the logical question. “So who would you want, JD? Who is your favorite?”

 

JD looked up, the frown growing deeper. “I guess that's the problem. I was trying to figure that out and I thought maybe you guys would have someone that I knew. But – I don't really know most of the ones you said.”

 

“It ain't about who we like,” Buck said, shaking his head. “Who's your hero?”

 

JD stared at Buck and in the fading afternoon light, Josiah thought he might be blushing.

 

Buck grinned suddenly, reaching out to pick up JD's hat from the table. “Bat Masterson, ain't it? Ain't that who you'd like to spend an hour with, maybe get some more fashion advice? Didn't you tell me you wrote him a letter?”

 

JD glared at him and snapped, “That was a long time ago, Buck, when I was just a kid.” He shook his head and turned back to the table, acting as if Buck weren't there.

 

Josiah tried not to grin, understanding what Buck was trying to do – but also that this was something that was important to JD. And he suspected, having had a few deep conversations with JD, that he had an idea of what was really on the young man's mind.

 

“Vin,” Josiah said casually, turning toward him, “did you ever meet any of the Texas Rangers?”

 

Vin's eyebrows rose on his wide forehead, but it didn't take him more than a second to understand the question and the heard of it. “Well,” he said slowly, stalling to get his thoughts together, “I grew up in a part of Texas that was still pretty wild. We had problems with the Indians all the time – either them needing help or wanting to kill us. The Texas Rangers were around – hell, my granddaddy was one of them during the war with Mexico. I was a little thing then, but I remember him coming back a hero, wearing the colors and talking about the war.”

 

It was, Josiah noted, exactly what JD wanted to hear. Maybe even needed to hear. The young man leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Did he know Jack Hays?”

 

And there it was. Josiah didn't now the name himself, but he had a suspicion about what it meant.

 

He wasn't surprised when Vin nodded. “Served with him, for a time. My grandpa thought he was the best leader Texas ever had – well, almost the best. Grandpa was also partial to Sam Houston.”

 

JD took a deep breath, and Josiah noticed that Buck and Chris glanced at each other, and that Ezra was smiling to himself. “You got any stories?” JD asked, and though the question was rushed, his voice was soft, as if he were shy.

 

Vin didn't have a lot of stories but he had a few. And they were far more than most of them had ever heard from him. He wasn't one to go on for any length of time, but for the space of a beer, he related to JD some stories about his grandfather that Josiah was pretty sure none of them would ever have heard if JD hadn't brought up the topic.

 

“You know,” JD said at one point, “Jack Hays wasn't much bigger than me. Or at least, that's what I've heard.”

 

Buck laughed, but before he could cut in and make it a joke, Chris spoke up, his voice low but his tone clear. “I heard that, too, JD. Guess it goes to show that courage ain't got nothing to do with size.”

 

“Indeed,” Ezra said. “Nor does intelligence.” He grinned as he flipped a few cards over in his solitaire game. “He was a very clever man, as I understand it.”

 

Josiah watched as the stories of Jack Hays passed from Vin to JD. JD didn't seem to notice that he was the one talking about Hays, telling stories about him with the same enthusiasm that Buck told stories about himself.

 

Or, Josiah thought after a time, with the same enthusiasm as JD told stories about the seven of them. Josiah glanced over to Vin at one point, pleased that Vin was interested in the stories. Vin knew Jack Hays as someone from his family's past while JD knew him as someone from his own youthful past, a hero that had captured his imagination.

 

“Can you imagine what it was like?” JD asked after a time. “I mean, Vin, your granddaddy was out there with him, helping to bring order and justice to the wild.”

 

Vin shifted in his chair, and Josiah saw a shadow pass over his face. The lights in the saloon were flickering as the candles were lit, the sun fading, but Vin's response spoke of a different shadow. “Can't really speak to that,” he said, staring into his beer. “Not sure that what they believed in is what we should believe in today.”

 

“They believed in the rule of law,” JD said, “and in helping people learn how to make the most out of the land, how to help them live better.”

 

Vin frowned, glancing to Chris. It was hard to see, but Josiah was pretty sure that their designated leader shook his head slightly, as if warning Vin away.

 

JD must have seen it too, as he drew a deep breath and opened his mouth to say something.

 

“To live better?” Ezra said, cutting in. He was playing a game of solitaire, and his tone was light and casual. “What does that mean, JD? If they had enough to eat, and they were happy – for the most part - why would they want to change the way they lived?”

 

JD stared at Ezra, as if the words made no sense to him.

 

“Let's suppose,” Ezra said, still casually, “that your mother were still healthy. Would you have picked up and left the East to come here?”

 

JD blinked. He looked at Buck, but Buck, strangely, was looking down into his beer, not taking part in this conversation, and not distracted by a woman. “Well,” JD said, “I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but . . . I like to think that I would have come eventually, but no, I would not have come when I did.”

 

Ezra nodded, still flipping cards. “You came because you were in a situation where you were unhappy and where you needed a change. But you chose that. What if your mother were still alive and you were happy there, but someone came along and said that you had to change because you weren't being happy the way they wanted you to be.”

 

JD stared at him again, and his brow furrowed into new and deeper wrinkles. Josiah's own face twinged in sympathy and he wondered what part of Ezra's hypothetical was based on personal experience. He did, though appreciate the effort Ezra was making.

 

As did Vin, apparently, as he said, “There are different ways to live, ain't no one way better than another. Trying to make people live the way you do ain't about them, it's about you. Some of the things that came out here were good, no way to argue otherwise. Medicine,” he said, nodding toward Nathan, who was also frowning, “and some of the things that make living easier, sure, those are good. But making people change the way they believe, their gods or their ideas about what's right and what's wrong – that ain't so good. Taking their land from 'em because you don't think they're using it right – that ain't good, either.”

 

JD let out a long, mournful breath. “You think that's what Jack Hays did? Mess up people's lives?” After a beat, he said more quietly, “Is that what we do?”

 

Buck was back, now, responding as he usually did to the worry in JD's voice. “We help people, JD – don't you let these philosophizing drunks mess with your head.” He glared at Vin as he said it.

 

Vin shrugged. “We all do what we think's best. Reckon Jack Hays did the same – and he did help a lot of people, no way to argue otherwise. Guess it's something to think on, though. We probably do hurt some people in the long run.”

 

“Yeah,” Buck said shortly, “the bad guys. We hurt them.”

 

“I think what Mr. Tanner is saying,” Ezra said, gathering up his cards, his game over, “is that there are consequences, often unintended and even unknown, in all actions. And perhaps, when we consider our heroes, we should also consider why they are our heroes. As I mentioned earlier, my own hero was given to dueling – a sport that was both deadly and illegal at the time. But men of honor had their own code, one that they deemed superior to the laws applied to other men.”

 

“Don't we know about that,” Chris said dryly, looking at Buck.

 

Buck grinned. “Good to know I'm like Ezra's hero. Maybe he'll buy me a drink.”

 

“Yes, perhaps,” Ezra agreed, “when you, too, come president.”

 

And just like that, they were all laughing, the tension broken and the issue momentarily at bay.

 

It didn't take long, though, for the evening to wind down; Chris and Vin left first, taking the remainder of a whiskey bottle and wandering out into the falling night. Ezra found some fools willing to put money on the table, and as he rose, he said softly, “Mr. Hamilton may have gambled with his life, but not with money. A man after mine own heart.”

 

Buck rolled his eyes, and in the doing, he caught sight of a new woman coming through the door. Josiah felt the breeze as Buck bolted past him to help the pretty young lady get served at the bar and to

then help her find a seat.

 

JD shook his head, and Nathan grinned around the stub of the cigar that was still in his lips. The smoke was rising a little faster now, the air cooling as the sun surrendered for the day.

 

They sat quiet for a time, Josiah thinking about the conversation and the easy way that Vin had presented his thoughts. He'd learned a long time ago that the young man was a deep thinker, despite his carefully concealed illiteracy.

 

“You think they're right?” JD asked after a while. “That helping people can also hurt 'em?”

 

Josiah looked to Nathan, hoping he'd have some ideas, but his friend shrugged. “This sounds like a question for a man of God,” Nathan said, dropping the long ash of his cigar into the spittoon on the floor. He had the good grace not to grin, but Josiah knew his friend was amused at his expense.

 

He sighed and finished off the last of his beer, wishing Chris had poured him one more shot before he'd left. He was going to need it with this conversation, he suspected.

 

But as he organized his thoughts to answer, JD went on, airing his ideas as they came to him. “I guess I know that, though. I didn't mean for what happened at the bank to happen – I was only trying to do good. But no one will ever look on me as a hero because of what happened with Mrs. Annie.”

 

Josiah held up a hand as JD drew a breath to go on. “You think heroes are all good? Or that, in order for someone to be a hero, they have to be all good?”

 

JD frowned again, and Josiah worried that his face might be stuck that way. “No,” he said, “I know that heroes are men, and that man aren't perfect. But - “

 

“You don't think that Jack Hays probably hurt someone he didn't mean to, in all those years of running around with a gun?” Josiah asked, driving the point home.

 

JD sighed. “I've never heard it told,” he said with a touch of defiance, but just a touch. “I know,” he went on as Josiah started to speak, “all people make mistakes. And all men who live by the gun have to learn the hard way – least, that's what Buck said, but I think he must be right as when he said it, Chris was sitting with us and he nodded.”

 

There was JD's real hero, of course, though he was learning the same hard lesson about Chris: that heroes were human.

 

“You know,” Nathan said, finally getting involved, “maybe that's why we think of them has heroes, or people that we respect, people we want to know more about. Maybe it's the fact that we know they've made mistakes but they keep on trying to do the best they can. Maybe we see something of ourselves in them and we want to try to be more like how we think they are.”

 

JD looked at him, but this time, the frown wasn't as strong. “Well,” he said, “I have always thought that I wanted to be a Texas Ranger, so I could be like Jack Hays.” He turned and looked out the window. “Some days, I even get on my horse and start riding that way, toward Texas.”

 

Nathan shifted in his chair, catching Josiah's attention. Josiah shrugged at the question on his friend's face. It was the first he'd heard of it, well, since that day that they had all left town, after Judge Travis had hired the new marshal, which hadn't worked out. That had been over a year ago.

 

“What brings you back?” Josiah asked.

 

JD turned back to him, not frowning now, but not looking particularly happy. “Reckon I have people here I care about, and a promise to do this job of protecting them. Same thing that I guess keeps the rest of you in town.”

 

Josiah looked at Nathan who shrugged. Hard to argue something that clear cut, something he'd been thinking only a little while ago. “Maybe that's what makes a real hero,” he said, reaching for his hat. “Doing what people expect you to do, especially when you've made a promise to do it.” As he put his hat on his head, he said, “By the way, Jack Hays is still alive. A friend of mine in California is a priest in the area near San Francisco where Hays lives. He says he's a man very interested in politics – very involved in the Democratic Party now.”

 

JD 's eyes went wide and peripherally, Josiah saw Nathan's eyes narrow into a glare.

 

“He's become a politician?” JD asked, almost choking on the word.

 

“A damned Democrat?” Nathan muttered.

 

Josiah shrugged, pushing up out of the chair and to his feet. “He is what he is – a man. You can still probably meet him, if you really want. Find out what sort of person he really is.”

 

JD swallowed, then he looked away, back out into the night. Through the scattering of people in the saloon, Josiah saw that Chris and Vin were on the boardwalk, leaning against the railing and watching the sun set. “You know,” JD said, “maybe it's not such a good idea to meet one's heroes. I like the idea I have of him in my head. I reckon it won't stay that way if I meet the real thing.”

 

Josiah nodded, reaching down to pat JD's shoulder as he walked past him. “You're a smart man, JD Dunne. Keep that image alive as long as you can. You'll be a happier man for it.”

 

As he walked to the door, he smiled to himself. He'd picked up his lance again, knowing that he was talking into the wind, but then again, maybe not. Maybe JD really had heard him, and this hadn't been a windmill. Maybe he could head back to the church and write a sequel to the novel, one in which Don Quixote won another day. . .


End file.
